Well, I always wanted one of those Ibiz laser keyboards for pdas (Official Site), but didn’t know that they might be so good into hearing my prayers and making one for the sx1. Yes there is one for the phone, recently revealed at Cebit. On a personal note text entry do take sometime getting used to, even after using the phone for one month+ or so, its still a good phone with very buggy OS and an under used 175Mhz Texas instruments processor inside. What more can make it better by throwing in the Ibiz laser keyboard into the phone? Check out this article on it. (more eyecandies here)
As quoted, said that its an add on by siemens, whether they are selling it as a whole new phone or as an addon realy depends on them, but I really do hope they are, and release them pronto too!.

This week is full of happenings, namely a birthday dinner before booking in last sunday. Followed by 3 days of armour phase training on M113s and sweating outfield. Moreover, guess what- a perfect place to spend the last 3 days of the week and celebrate one’s birthday? – on tekong outfield? Where only your platoon are there to sing you a birthday song at night before sleeping out in the wilderness altogether, oh well so much for camping life or I say- life of a soldier? It’s my 2nd year in National service and my 2nd consective year where I got to actually celebrate my birthday in tekong too. And of course with 19 years behind me, I am 20 now, not very old but very much the end of teenage years for me. oh well, theres more to life and I believe, its just beginning…

The word is out at this link. It would be out on october, aka rockstar game’s 2004 finisher for this year’s GTA series. Current projects include the release of Red Dead Revolver, Manhunt on the PC and Xbox, as well as Grand Theft Auto’s introduction on the GameBoy Advance and the arrival of Vice City on Japanese shores.

Would be going for some light timsum “pre birthday” breakfast tomorrow with my family. The planned family dinner for my birthday tomorrow would be postponed to the next weekend, because of some last minute changes. In place would be dinner with my BMT friends where dom(his birthday today), gingrui (birthday tomorrow) and me (25th march) would be muching away at breeks with the platoon tml evening. Sunday night is the only time where everybody would be free, instead of an actually more convinent (and intended) lunch. I guess my parents were pretty understanding on the sudden change of plans and I am glad they actually happily allowed the postponing of tomorrow’s family dinner as well. Guess that when you are in the army the precious weekends are usually all packed and cramped with activities and you actually got to spend every bit of it wisely with your loved ones, or actually celebrate on your actual birthday out of camp too.

Thursday was a rather funny day esp for my phone- Hurried off for some lessons from the 4th floor down with my hands full of lecture files and stationary, together with my Siemens sl45 on the stack. The moment I hit the stairs a sudden shift of upward g-forces caused everything flying up- and around the stair well the most it like nooo.. (hands outstrethed) as my phone bonced down 4-5 steps down before going thru the stair hand rails and down the vertical stairwell shaft, followed by a very loud TANG!, then silence…

I was expecting a mess of phone when I recover it on my way down but heck no, mircalously I found my phone rather intact- the main body and battery lying seperately on the 2nd floor and my MMC card on the 3th floor. It turned out that the phone actually flew from the 4th floor down the stairwell, hit the railing on the 2nd floor where it ended up and the MMC flying to the 3rd. So based on some basic phycis on impact the lighter parts will tend to get disassmebled earlier while the heavier ones wil do so later on impact. So that kinda helped in the recovery of all the removable parts.

Slapped all the parts back and scray enough it still turns on, with screen functioning well, keypad and backlight working. wow… strong phone.

Luckily I didn’t use my SX1 that day, glad I switched to my old trusty SL45. or…

Play dutch heh? oh that might be the though most of us had today when my NS friend, ChongGen invited me and 3 more other platoonfriends for lunch today at some italian resturant near farrer road/serene center area. Before that, he brought us to his house so he could unpack his stuff and man it was big- about 5000 sqm. He even had a pool, gym, ballroom sized hall and lots (and I mean lots) of cars in his driveway, not to mention the pool table which we played while waiting for him there.

The resturant where we had our invitation really does fine dining and I guess most of us, italian food is not very much of our taste, expected of a rich guy like him. Tried squid ink pasta his recommendation (partly cos I can’t really understand italian in the menu)- a weird dish too, but worth wandering into and trying. And, well it actually turns out to be pasta cooked in squid ink- literally. Though I can’t really taste the ink, its very much taste like pasta in white sauce, only that everything is all black and ilky, not to mention the mess it can bring to your mouth and face on any “uncued slurping”. The rest ordered traditional pasta, baked rice and lasagna, so my dish was the rather “out of this world” one, esp the regular snicker from the group whenever I get ink all over my mouth… messy!

Passed my traffic police basic theory test, (yea!) got the letter in the mail with my mum happily informing me bout that thru the phone last friday- this means one step closer to my driving license, time to move on the the pracs. Moreover I tried applied another time into the local Us today for a chance to get into mechnical engineering course, hope I would be able to get in this year.

Had another good buy- Jurassic park operation genesis at $19.90, (usual $49.90). whee!

Would be going out for some more mad impulse shopping with my teammate John tomorrow.. *duh*

There I was at the safe superstore warehouse at Sims drive doing what most singaporeans are born for- queuing. Whats more? is a branded 21″ TV going for $99 or a 14″ going for $69 too much too resist? Anyway I was not in for any of those (and thats good), but pretty much for a portable DVD player going at $360. The ad on the newspaper did cover up alot of things, not revealing the makes and brands of the products they are having at the sale, but the price, so why not drop by this morning to take alook? But the moment I saw it: SONY D-VM1 with a 3.5″ portable LCD screen- $360 (previously $1599) arghh! GOTTA get it…

The SCDF (SG civil defense force) dropped by camp yesterday morning, which was too the camp’s annual safety day. In the morning there was a mock up fire with the fire fighters arriving in a Dennis fire engine and a light strike fire buggy at the scene of the “fire”, setting up hoses to a nearby hydrant while concurrently having another team racing up to the top floor of the “firey” block to fight the fire and save the “casualties”, carrying them all down for burns treatment & CRP by the ST john’s ambulance brigade. I can say that everything was rather eyebrow-rasing. There was a demo of proper fire extinguishing techniques using an extinguisher (and I can remember the last time when I’ve got to race into a fire with one during an outfield forest fire, man was a that dangerous job…) . Furthermore there was a chemical decon demo and water hosing demo where various high pressure hose guns were brought out for all to see and try, not to mention the turret mounted high pressure water cannon on the fire engines (similarly seen on those airport 6x6x6 air craft disaster response team) which can send water spewing 20-50m into the air on various spray modes.

A lunch reception was on thereafter, after CO thanked the team from jurong fire station and the ST john ambulance for the spectaucler show & demo, issuing them with tokens of appreciation & glass trophies for thanks. After that, well its book out time, yea baby…